This application is based upon and claims the benefit of priority from the prior Japanese Patent Application No. 2000-191313, filed on Jun. 26, 2000; the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a passing examination system and a passing examination method to accept a travel document and examine incoming/outgoing to/from a specific place for approval/disapproval, and open/close a passing gate according to the result of the examination and more particularly to an immigration system and an immigration method for accepting passports and automatically examining the immigration.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the immigration at airports, normally a traveler who desires departure or return to/from overseas submits such a required document as a passport, airline ticket, etc. and an examiner compares a photograph of traveler""s face printed on the passport with a traveler himself (herself) and judges the approval or disapproval of the departure or return.
Therefore, skill is required and a work burden on an examiner is large and much time was needed.
On a passport that is a subject for the examination, a photograph of a traveler""s face is printed as the biological information of a traveler. In the actual examination, the photograph of a face printed on the passport is compared and judged with a traveler""s face visually by an examiner and therefore, there was such a problem that reliability lacks in the examination.
As a method for solving the above problem, for example, Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. Hei 5-35935 (laid open on Feb. 12, 1993) disclosed an immigration system. In this system, the immigration is automatically examined according to such a passport that is a portable storage medium not depending on the visual examination by an examiner according to a photograph of a face printed on a passport and an actual traveler""s face.
That is, the passport disclosed in Japanese laid Open Patent Publication (Kokai) No. Hei 5-35935 comprises: non-volatile memories each of which is composed of an identification information memory for storing personal checking image information to specify identity of a bearer, a personal confirmation image information memory for storing identification information to confirm the identity with a bearer, and a control information memory for storing control information for immigration control, respectively, a case composed of portable noncombustible material for accommodating the above-mentioned memories and an interface for enabling the data access to the memories from the outside of the case.
Further, the immigration system using the passports comprises: personal confirming means installed at the immigration examination yard for confirming immigrating persons, information reading means installed at the immigration examination yard for reading personal confirming image information, identification information and control information stored in the memory incorporated in the passports, justifiability discriminating means for comparing image information obtained from the personal confirming means with the personal confirming image information read from the information reading means and discriminating justifiability of a passport and its bearer based on the identification information and control information read from the information reading means, control information writing means for writing control information for the immigration control into a control information memory of the passport memory, and a gate that is opened/closed according to the result of discrimination of the justifiability discriminating means.
In the passport and the immigration system, wherein this passport is used, being disclosed in Japanese Laid Open Publication (Kokai) No. Hei 5-35935, it becomes very difficult to modify or alter the passport and it is therefore possible to prevent illegal use of a passport. Further, this system has advantages that waiting times at the immigration examination yard are shortened and the congestion is dissolved.
However, as the immigration gate is opened/closed according to the result of discrimination by the justifiability discrimination means, there are such problems as described below.
That is, if a passport was judged to be not justifiable or a bearer of a passport was not justifiable by the justifiability discriminating means, the gate is not opened. At this time, the bearer of that passport is not able to pass through the gate and has to stand waiting until an examiner comes. While waiting till an examiner arrives, many other passport bearers waiting the examination behind a person who is judged to be not justifiable also have to wait until the problem is solved. Accordingly, a waiting time may not be necessarily shortened.
The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances and it is an object to provide a passing examination system and a passing examination method that are capable of automatically examining approval or disapproval of a traveler to pass the gate certainly and making waiting times short.
According to embodiments of the present invention, an immigration system is provided, which is composed of: an insertion port to receive a Travel Document (TD) recording individual information which specifies a bearer; a reader to read individual information from the TD inserted into the insertion port by the bearer; an acquiring portion to acquire biological information of the bearer; a collator to collate the biological information of the bearer acquired by the acquiring portion with the individual information read from the TD of the bearer by the reader; an examination portion to examine the passing of the bearer for approval or disapproval based on the result of collation by the collator; a passing ticket issuer to issue a passing ticket to the bearer who is approved to pass a gate by the examination portion; and a gate to approve the passage by accepting the passing ticket issued by the passing ticket issuer.